The subject of this communication, expectations from the field of social science and particularly from education, refers to the retarded child at the school-age level.

One danger from all this lies in the fact that nothing is more tempting than to be handed a crystal ball—to be allowed through a type of primitive thinking to see magically into the future, to project one's hopes and wishes, and to declare them to be the inexorably established course and accomplishments of the future. A second danger is that, in doing so, a scientist will expand his own particular research concern to the point where his narrowly selected specificities will exclude interests and aspects of other disciplines whose voices are bound to be—and should be—heard.

To avoid this Scylla, I shall attempt to outline notions and observations applicable to the work— and the attitudes—of all our disciplines, and to the public at large.